Let’s hope our green initiatives don’t go postal

In an attempt to jump on the “going-green” bandwagon, QU officials informed the rest of the University community of their efforts to administer new policies that will try to make Quinnipiac a “greener” place. Part of these efforts include a more eco-friendly communication system by the campus post office. In an e-mail sent out Jan. 12, students were informed about the new package tracking system which uses e-mail notifications in place of paper slips.

In addition, Q-Card verification is required instead of paper signatures to receive packages. Finally that “big black hole” of a book bigger than Genesis requiring students to “sign on the X” upside down, shall cease to exist, saving the world one tree at a time. Smokey Bear would be proud. Now if we could just think of how to prevent students who suffer from cases of late-night party-induced dementia from losing their Q-Cards, we might be one carbon footprint closer to creating world peace.

The implementation the e-mail claims will begin this week still hasn’t seen the light of day, but I have hope that this system will set a standard and encourage responsibility for QU students and staff to follow because Kermit was right. It’s not so easy being green. Especially for QU students who fail to recognize that being environmentally-friendly involves more than just joining a “green” Facebook group or following Ralph Nader on Twitter. In fact, being green involves taking action and enforcing the rules that you say you believe in. That’s why I’m a bit concerned that our fellow QU green advocates are not who they say they are.

For instance, the construction in the Café and the new “eco-friendly” QU has trashed the idea of keeping the garbage cans once adorning the doors exiting the café near Dorm Road. Since students don’t want to walk past the library to throw away their trash, forcing them out into the blistering cold, a single garbage can located outside the Dorm Road doors is taking all the heat! Filled with a plethora of left-over Pepsi cans, half-eaten sandwiches and salads, it’s more than enough to cause Oscar the Grouch to jump ship.

Furthermore, this pile of trash outweighs the whole point of having the reusable cups and silverware since nobody seems to be paying attention or caring where his or her garbage is going. Come on QU students: Use your noggins! Trash goes inside the trash can. Not around it, over it and everywhere in between. Right beside the recycling container does not count as recycling, either.

But QU is going to have to do a lot more than instill Barney-style learning tactics to bury this problem in the dirt because students aren’t the only ones to blame. Professors claim the University is trying to save paper by uploading syllabi onto Blackboard, when in reality, students end up having to print a copy to refer to anyway. So what, now students are supposed to look like the main cause of deforestation? I will not be accountable for messing with the trees especially after James Cameron’s “Avatar.” Nobody wants to be on the Na’vi races’ bad side from interfering with their direct connection to Eywa.

One accounting professor decided to not only pass out a 16-page syllabus packet, but reprint three of the pages again as handouts. Is that really necessary? This doesn’t seem like someone we can account on to save the trees?

If QU really wants to do a better job at reducing its carbon footprint, especially when we’re dealing with one that feels like the size of Bigfoot, both staff and students are going to have to make minor adjustments part of major assignments in their daily lives. This includes using the recycling system our school provides for us and modeling our lives after the changes the post office is making. So, calling team Roots and Shoots: Let’s hope you are on-target in de-rooting these problems on campus.